Zoe and Elpis
by Iphigen
Summary: Kara must come to an understanding - about what her life meant, and what it meant to be a hero
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note:

This story was written a long time ago, in fact most of it was written shortly after Crisis on Infinite Earths in the mid to late 80's. Recently a friend told me that there was something called Fan Fiction, pointed me to this site, and said I should publish it. Two problems: it was written on a typewriter, and a lot of it didn't make much sense based on twenty-plus years of stories told in the interim. "No problem" I was told. Well, ordered actually. "Re-enter it on your word processor, then fix the problems." Sounds of sighing and typing, typing and sighing. Happy sighing, I forgot how much I missed the characters.

More recently I realized I should provide an author's note with some background. And here that is.

Chapter 1 was entered with no changes, Chapter 2 had a few more, Chapter 3 quite a few, and after that there are (or will be, I'm still working on it) numerous changes of characters, events, and dialog to make it not sound so out of date. And the final two chapters have to be re-written almost entirely.

Please accept my apologies in advance if it takes awhile to get the whole thing online. It's taking much longer than it probably should since I am transcribing, and I'm finding that re-writing portions of the story is harder than writing a new story since the path is changing under my feet while the destination remains the same. Not to mention that my writing style has also changed a lot since those days. I'm trying to emulate how I wrote then so it doesn't seem too jarring, but I'm sure a discerning reader will notice the differences.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks to my friend. You showed me that Kara Zor-El was back, and convinced me to read her new adventures. As I said, I didn't realize how much I missed her.

I do not own the characters herein, nor do I make any claim in any way to own them. All characters, representations, and likenesses are owned by DC Comics and Warner Bros.

* * *

"Kara?"

Did she want to wake up? What time was it?

"Kara... Kara, please."

Odd, she didn't feel sleepy. In fact, this wasn't at all like waking from sleep.

Kara opened her eyes, and a bright blue sky dotted with slowly moving clouds greeted her. A slight breeze gently caressed her forehead, blowing her hair and tickling her neck. She could smell flowers, nothing she recognized, but the scent was lovely. Perfect, so perfect. She smiled slightly, feeling happy and content for no reason she could discern. She closed her eyes again, stretched, and felt that somehow everything was just... right somehow. There was a sense of comfort and serenity filling her that she couldn't place, a peace she hadn't felt in years. Since she was a very small child in fact. How long ago was that? She couldn't quite remember.

She stretched again and lazily rolled onto her side. Resting her head on one hand, she saw that she was on the side of a gently sloping hill that dropped away for a few miles, ending at the shore of a river. The river slowly meandered below, losing itself in either direction behind other hills, all of them covered with green grass, groves of trees, and an occasional patch of brightly colored flowers. In the distance she could see the hills continue on until they lost themselves at the bottom of a range of mountains, their facets sparkling in the sunlight like jewels. In fact, they were jewels, she remembered happily that these must be the Jewel Mountains.

Kara bolted to her feet. This couldn't be, she had never been to the Jewel Mountains, they had been destroyed with Krypton. She had only known them from the books she had seen in Argo City, and later from pictures and descriptions in the records of Kandor in Kal-El's fortress.

Wait, no! Kal was in trouble, she had to...

Oh Rao. She remembered everything now. Kal-El, bruised and bloodied, on the ground, the death blow coming. The Universe, no the Multiverse in peril, everything she loved about to end. Not just Life, but the very idea of life itself was ending. An end to all creation in its infinite forms. No good, no evil, no hope, no despair, an endless nothing for all eternity. At that moment she had experienced a clarity of purpose and vision she had never known before. Kal represented Truth and Justice, suddenly she had understood that she sided with Life and Hope. And here she had taken her stand.

She had fought the Anti-Monitor. She had thrown everything into the fight, she had never used her powers like that before. This was different from any battle she had known. She had held a desperate line against the nothingness the Anti-Monitor had brought, and for that moment she had prevailed. But only partly.

And then she died.

The last thing she remembered in life was Kal's grief stricken face. And now she realized that maybe she had failed after all, because the Hope she fought for was fading from his eyes, and the essence of Life she was defending was no longer hers to guard. She could never defend them again. The Anti-Monitor had not been defeated, only delayed, and she could no longer join the battle.

This was failure. She was failing her friends, her world. Kal. Barbara. Her parents, both adopted and Kryptonian. Kara had known setbacks in her life, but there was always hope. Always.

Kara had never been a religious person. She often used the name of Rao, but it was an empty word for her, like so many other words and phrases used casually and without meaning. She had never given an afterlife much thought. She had never thought much about death, not because it wasn't always a possibility in the life she had lived, but because it brought back the pain and loss she had tried so hard to bury after the destruction of her home. But here and now that wasn't an option. Death could not be ignored, not this time, and the fact that there was something beyond it could not be denied. It was all around her.

She didn't really know how this worked. From what she knew about Rao you didn't ask for things, you were supposed to exercise free will in your life. But she had to do something. So she spoke, but not as a prayer. She didn't know how to do that. It was a conversation, a request, with no knowledge that there would be an answer or even that she would be heard. But for Kara there was hope. There was always hope.

"Are you there? Are you listening? If you are, please help them. Guide them, grant them wisdom and strength. Give them hope, and life. I can't. I so want to, but I can't." Her voice cracked just a bit, and she swallowed hard. "I couldn't stay for Kal, but he can't give up. He can't lose hope."

Silence. Just the wind blowing through the grass. Then a voice.

"Kara, what makes you think you can't still give hope?"


	2. Chapter 2

Kara turned to see a woman. Much to her surprise a very normal, everyday sort of woman.

"Are you Death?" Kara asked hesitantly. The question felt rude somehow.

Kara knew that death personified itself throughout the multiverse, though that personification varied from reality to reality, world to world, culture to culture, sometimes even from one person's experience to another. And she remembered overheard conversations about such things when she visited the Justice League's headquarters. Comments by Dr. Fate, and quiet dialog between the magic wielders who dealt with things she and Kal weren't well suited for. Strange stories too, but not like the ones she and her friends had told each other as children at night before they would dive giggling into their beds. Some of it was very disturbing, it was one of the reasons she had never spent much time at the JLA headquarters. She had never quite gotten the skill of tuning things out like Kal, probably because she hadn't grown up with her powers like he had.

But this woman in front of her wasn't in the least intimidating. In fact she reminded her a little of the pictures she had seen of Clark's adopted mother, Martha Kent. And a little of the women who had worked at the orphanage where she stayed when she first came to Earth. A small, nondescript woman with a kindly face and smile, pleasant and comfortable. Peaceful. After the epic things she had seen and experienced in her life, and then death, this seemed somehow anticlimactic.

"No, not death." Her voice was sweet, inviting, comfortable. Kara wondered if that was by design. "I'm hardly that important. I'm just a friend here, someone to talk to. To help you learn the things you need to know. I know you're just filled with questions." The woman had spread a blanket on the grass. Was that a tea service and tray? Here? "Please come sit with me awhile dear. Do you use sugar? I used to, but it always makes it hard for me to sleep at night."

"Um... no sugar, thank you." Kara decided she liked the woman, she wasn't sure why. Kara sat down again, crossing her legs and feeling the rough texture of the blanket. Rough texture, and she could feel it. She could feel textures, smell the flowers in the air, feel the warmth of the day. "I shouldn't be surprised," she thought, "but I am. I don't know why." She looked again at the woman as she went about preparing the tea, uncovering a small plate with little pastries, opening a tiny container of what looked like marmalade. "Do you sleep?" Kara asked. "If we're dead, why sleep?"

Another smile. "Sleep is something you can value, even when you can only walk between. It brings a different viewpoint to the world. A sense of perspective. It's one of the many things created with Life that has value to more than the living, even outside of Life." She glanced sideways at Kara. "You don't have to give up everything when you're here. You don't even have to stay here."

"Stay here?" Surprise after surprise, it seemed. "I have a choice?"

The woman giggled a little and offered the cup of tea to Kara. Her hand shook slightly, the cup faintly rattling against the saucer. "Of course! Kara, there is always choice. Always!" Kara took the cup and sipped the tea, realizing it was a bit too hot. Yet another surprise, she realized suddenly that she was sensitive to temperature. The Kryptonian powers she had in life must not have followed her here. Kara gazed into her cup, at the small tea leaves that moved at the bottom with the motions of her hand. In life she had the ability to see things that few other could see, but she realized that now she was perceiving things in a different way. Not with more detail, not more clarity, but different in a way she couldn't quite describe yet. Almost as if everything she sensed was a part of her.

"They are a part of you. And of me." Apparently this woman read minds, Kara thought.

"No, I don't read minds," she quickly responded, "not in that way. Kara, you're no longer alive, and this world is what it is because it's what you perceive it to be. You are what you are right now in this place because it's what you're familiar with. I seem familiar to you because familiarity is what you want right now. These are your choices, I'm merely along for the ride as you would have said in life."

The woman continued. "Your choices now are infinite, limited only by your desire and will. Some you will create, and some will be brought to you." She paused, closed her eyes, and Kara felt a change in her demeanor. "And here is the beginning of those choices. Kara, there are those who would like to meet with you. One you know." Another pause, and a deep breath. Kara was amused, despite herself. Why does she breathe? Why do either of us breathe? The woman started again. "The first is someone who has a story to tell, and indicated he wants to apologize." She stopped and stared into the distance as if remembering something long ago. "Now isn't that a surprise? He has never apologized to anyone, in any of his incarnations. Even to me, though he owes me one too. But that's a story for another time. You knew him as the Spectre."

Kara was shocked, and a bit frightened. "The Spectre wants to meet with me?" She remembered the times she had met the Spectre. He made her feel strange, as if he knew things about her she didn't know herself, now she realized that he probably did. He always looked at everyone strangely if he looked at them at all, like he was looking through them or past them at something far away. But at times he looked directly at her, and his gaze lingered. Not like the gaze of a man. Like all women she was familiar with that. Sometimes he seemed a bit sad, the sort of sadness that you didn't want to try to penetrate. But always knowing. Most of the time he seemed to be filled with wrath, as if he was always seeking vengeance for some wrong. Strange, here she was, dead, and thinking about the Spectre still bothered her. Even now he made her feel like a child.

Kara's voice was small, quiet. "I'm not sure I want to meet the Spectre. He makes me nervous."

"That isn't surprising really. The Spectre is a personification of ultimate vengeance. You, my dear, are driven by hope. Vengeance and Hope, true hope, don't often dwell in the same vessel, one tends to drive out the other. But you shouldn't worry, you're beyond his grasp now." The woman tilted her head sideways, a thoughtful look on her face. "That's a very unusual thing for a Hero. Hope, and Life I believe you said."

"When did I say that? We've just met." Kara stopped again. She realized now that she knew this woman, but she didn't know from where. But Kara knew she was right, even now it was hope that was driving her. There had to be hope.

The woman sighed and put her cup down. "Most Heroes are motivated by a desire for gain," she continued, as if Kara hadn't spoken, "or a need for justification. Personal significance, a sense of loss, proving their worth." She held out her hand and counted one finger against another. "Retribution. Guilt. Sorrow. Pain. Duty. So many reasons, many of them worthy, many not. The worthiness of the motivation is always secondary to the behavior it engenders and the ends that it achieves. But Hope, and Life? My dear, you're not unique in the Multiverse, but you're certainly rare. Perhaps unique in your former line of work. It's no wonder you've stirred things up."

Kara was nonplussed. "What do you mean, stirred things up. I haven't done anything since I've been here. Except talk to you."

The woman laughed, and the laugh made Kara smile and then laugh too. It was an infectious laugh, so full of warmth and love. "Oh little girl, you would not believe it. That was really a very heroic death you know. And so full of purpose, and passion, and even love! Iconic, very iconic. You are quite the object of discussion, you provided them with a lot to talk about for a long time." She paused, noticing Kara's quizzical look. "Yes, of course, I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself, please forgive an old lady her lack of focus. Let me try this differently." She crossed her hands in her lap, lifted her chin, and said in an odd formal way, "Kara, may I reintroduce you to an old acquaintance?"

Kara felt a presence, and realized that there was someone else standing nearby. Green cloak, hood partially obscuring the face, a white costume that she still wasn't sure wasn't actually skin. Well, she had been told that the choices were hers, she might as well go along with it.

"Is it Spectre, or would you prefer Mr. Spectre? Please, sit down for awhile." Kara said calmly. "Would you like some tea?" The old woman smiled, and prepared another cup.


	3. Chapter 3

"Are you aware of why you lived your life as you did?" The Spectre's voice intoned.

The Spectre had rarely spoken to her directly when Kara was alive, and even then he always seemed distracted and distant. There was nothing distant or distracted about him now, all his attention and will seemed focused on her. She had known so many powerful beings in her life, so many with a personal presence and charisma that seemed to dominate whatever place they found themselves in. Men, women, entities that were neither, used to wielding power and being listened to and obeyed. This was like that, and yet somehow different, the Spectre was on a different plain entirely. And, oddly enough, he seemed to not be the same being she had known, as if there was someone new acting in the role. Kara realized that she hadn't known if that was possible.

"I was hoping," Kara said, "that you might sit with us for a bit, I'd like to..."

"Do you know what contributions you made in your brief material existence?" The Spectre's deep voice demanded. "Have you felt the depth and nature of your connections to others throughout the mortal plane?"

Kara tried again. "I'm sorry, if you would just..."

"Answer!" the Spectre's voice boomed. "Answer, woman! Much now depends upon your ability to perceive your life's values! Why you chose your path! Who you were at the core of your being! Why, when you finally came to the end of things at the beginning of things, you willingly made the sacrifice you made!"

She was momentarily filled with awe. There was a glory and power in the Spectre that made her feel small, and intimidated. It was the same feeling she had when she had met him when she was alive, but now so intense it was almost blinding. Then just as quickly the awe was replaced by a new feeling. Surprised, she realized she was annoyed.

"You know, you really are quite rude." Kara felt her face flush. She hadn't felt that since she was a child living on Argo City. I guess you don't flush when you're invulnerable, she thought. "I asked if you would please sit down," she continued, her voice showing more calm and composure than she felt, "and I offered you tea. You've responded to neither and instead began questioning me as if I was on trial. Am I on trial?"

"All Earthly beings must face the trial of their own truths when the Book of Life is opened! You will..."

"But I'm not from Earth." Kara said simply. "I'm from Krypton. Does that make a difference?"

The Spectre stopped in mid-sentence and glared at her.

"Right to the point, Casper. I think you're out of your jurisdiction. This has to work her way or not at all." The woman who had first welcomed her was grinning, and Kara realized that again she looked different, this time much younger. Her hair had become a reddish-brown, and now she wore a hooded robe with sandals. And her voice had changed, even the way she spoke seemed different, much less formal and more colloquial. Why did this keep happening? Is this what the afterlife was like, people changing constantly around her?

"Did you... just call the Spectre... 'Casper'?" Kara asked, then started giggling. She remembered cartoons on television when she was in the orphanage. "He doesn't seem very friendly to me." She giggled again. This woman's sense of humor, of the absurd, struck a chord in Kara's heart. Again, as before, it was almost as if she knew her from somewhere, some time in her life. The woman responded with hearty laughter, and Kara's giggles turned into laughs in response. It felt good, she couldn't remember when she had last been able to laugh like this.

But now the Spectre's entire focus had returned to the woman, and Kara sensed that her bravado was wavering just a bit. She could see that there was an unspoken agreement of some sort between the two, that they were even reluctant partners in what was now happening. But partners in what, and why?

"Take this tea," Kara said brusquely to the Spectre, "sit down, and tell me what you came to tell me. I guess I have all eternity, so we might as well enjoy ourselves." Kara raised one eyebrow at the pale Hand Of Vengeance, then smiled. "And please, stop lecturing and just talk to me. We were allies when I was alive. Well, I think we were allies, sometimes it was hard for me to tell with you magical types. We were, weren't we? And still are?"

To Kara's surprise, and the woman's obvious amazement, the Spectre did as she asked and slowly sat on the grass. He took the tea, then placed it on the grass beside him. Kara happily accepted this partial victory.

"First," the Spectre started again, "I must inform you of your place and station. You are virtuous, and lived a blameless and honorable life." Kara was relieved to see the Spectre sitting calmly, his voice so much less intimidating, but his tea still untouched. Even sitting cross-legged on the grass he didn't look at ease, his bearing formal and stiff. But at least he wasn't being so belligerent! "And in the face of your own death," he continued, "you chose the difficult path, the necessary path, and acquitted yourself with grace and honor. Your acts were a holding action, they prevented a critical loss, and by your example hope was restored in the hearts of those present. Hope that, in the end, a victory could yet be achieved. The sacrifice you and others made allowed the fabric to be re-woven, and though the universes died at least one could live again. You willingly picked up this burden when the time came, provided inspiration by your example, and because of this you are honored even by Powers you do not know."

Kara was shaking her head, not wanting to believe what she had just heard. "Wait, what do you mean 'the universes died?'"

"The Multiverse as it was became not, and then it was again - but only as one, not many." The Spectre said, almost sadly. "Much that you knew remained, much merged, but infinitely more was lost."

"Wait, wait... we failed? You're saying we failed? I thought you said we made a difference!" The Spectre was silent. Kara's heart was racing. How could her heart be racing? She didn't have one, did she? Oh Rao, Kal!

Kara stood up, her tea dumped unseen on the grass at her feet. "What happened? What happened to Earth? What happened to Kal? I thought you said..." She couldn't continue, she was having a hard time breathing. No! There was always hope, and she could, she would make a difference!

The world seemed to waver, the sky darkening. Ghosts of stone buildings were rising from the ground around her, at first transparent as fog, dreamlike. Then slowly more and more solid. A fortress. The Anti-Monitor's fortress! The air grew cold, and in the distance she heard the battle raging. She turned toward the sounds, her fists clenched, knowing that it was her will that guided this existence. And she would do what had to be done, as she always had. The Anti-Monitor was in there. Kal was in danger, she could hear his cries of pain as the Anti-Monitor battered him to the ground. She had to save him! The fate of all of the Earths was at stake. Kal, Lois. Her friend Barbara.

She felt power flooding through her, familiar and thrilling, fairly crackling through her frame. She looked down and saw she was now in her uniform, then gritted her teeth and focused her mind. Kara centered herself as Kal had taught her, reaching inside to gather together every last erg of energy for the assault, then slowly began to rise into the air. The cold wind was whipping around her now, blowing dust from the stones of the fortress, making her cape flutter and snap behind her. This time it would be different, she told herself. She would save her world, her allies, her friends!

"Please, Kara, stop, please! It's OK," the woman was yelling, trying to reach her, "everything's OK. Damn it Spectre! You know what's at stake!" She grabbed Kara, her hands grasping Kara's arm. "Kara, Kara, stop for a moment! Listen to me!" Kara turned, but her fists were still clenched, her jaw set. "Kara... come back to me. Listen, listen to me! Kara, all of this is your creation. Not the Anti-Monitor's fortress, your creation! Your will, your hope, your drive, your desire, make everything here what it is." The woman's eyes shined. "This was Krypton to you, now it's becoming the Anti-Monitor's fortress. But even if he's here, it's only your will, it's not really him. He's gone! Please Kara, please, don't be caught, this is a trap you're setting for yourself!" Kara looked down at the woman, at the hands gripping her arm. Now the fortress was fading again, the buildings wavering and insubstantial, then vapor and mist. The woman continued, forcing her voice to be calm. "Only your will, your belief. Your faith." The woman paused. "Faith. And Hope. Combined with a will like yours, it makes all the difference in life. It made all the difference in YOUR life. It makes all the difference here." She took Kara's hands, gently pulling her back down to the grass.

Kara nodded, closed her eyes, bowed her head. And the sky was blue again, the hills green, the flowers beautiful and fragrant. "And you've got a strong will." The woman looked around, seemingly surprised that everything was back to what it had been moments before. "Boy have you got a strong will! I'm surprised the Lanterns never recruited you, those little blue freaks never miss a bet. You really grew up right, I knew you would." She grinned that strangely familiar grin again. "You lived that life in the way it had to be lived, the way I couldn't, and did what you had to do. You became the woman the Multiverse needed." Then she laughed. "The Multiverse accepts no substitutes, even my ersatz Sydney Carton. I had to learn that lesson the hard way. Kara, I'm so proud!"

Kara turned and faced the woman, each still gripping the others hands. So familiar, she was so familiar. Her face, her voice, it danced around the edges of her consciousness but always just out of reach. Kara knew she had to grasp this somehow, she needed to know the truth. She should know, why didn't she know? If what the woman had said was true, if faith and hope and will could do so much, then she knew in that moment that she was going to understand, somehow. She would make it happen.

Then, in a sublime moment of perfect clarity it all crystallized and came into focus. Not just her life, not just her death, but even those parts of her life that were hidden from her. Things that had happened when she was half asleep as a child but only dimly remembered were now clear and sharp, integrated into her being. All her successes, all her failures, every moment she was proud of, or regretted, or that mattered to her or anyone else. Events that she had forgotten, places visited, people met and then never seen again, all of it snapped into place. Things that she had witnessed throughout the universe, the Multiverse, in the far future and the distant past. Even events that had been hidden from her by great Powers. Powers such as the Spectre. Now, in this place, even his power could not block her from this knowledge because it was part of her being. Kara turned to the woman, and in that glorious moment she knew. She knew!

"Thus is the Book of Life opened," the Spectre said softly, "and the ways and the paths revealed."

Kara pulled the woman to her greedily, burying her head against the woman's shoulder, and her voice was barely audible as she whispered, "Linda!"


End file.
